The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ (7 page)

For most of the time Christ kept out of the way of Jesus, because he could rely on the words of his informant. He knew his spy was trustworthy, because occasionally he checked the man's report by asking others what Jesus had said here, or done there, and found always that his informant was strictly accurate.

But when Christ heard that Jesus was going to preach in this town or that, he sometimes attended to hear for himself, always remaining inconspicuous at the back of the assembly. On one occasion when he did this, he heard Jesus questioned by a lawyer. Men of the law often tried their skill against Jesus, but Jesus was able to deal with most of them, though he frequently did so by what Christ thought were unfair means. Telling a story, as he so often did, introduced extra-legal elements into the discourse: persuading people by manipulating their emotions was all very well to gain a debating point, but it left the question of law unanswered.

This time the lawyer said to him, 'Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?'

Christ listened closely as Jesus responded: 'You're a lawyer, are you? Well, tell me what the law says.'

'You must love the Lord God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind. And you must love your neighbour as you love yourself.'

'That's it,' said Jesus, 'you've got it. You know the law. Do that, and you'll live.'

But the man was a lawyer, after all, and he wanted to show that he had a question for everything. So he said, 'Ah, but tell me this: who is my neighbour?'

So Jesus told this story:

'Once there was a man, a Jew like yourself, going along the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. And in the middle of his journey he was set on by a band of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, stole everything he had, and left him there by the roadside half-dead.

'Well, dangerous as it is, it's a busy road, and soon afterwards, along came a priest. He took one look at the man covered in blood at the roadside, and decided to look the other way and go on without stopping. Then along came a temple official, and he too decided not to get involved; he passed by as quickly as he could.

'But the next to come along was a Samaritan. He saw the wounded man, and he stopped to help. He poured wine on his wounds to disinfect them, and oil to soothe them, and he helped the man up on to his own donkey and took him to an inn. He gave the innkeeper money to look after him, and said, “If you need to spend more than this, keep an account, and I'll pay it next time I'm passing.”

'So here's a question for you, in answer to your question of me: which of these three men, the priest, the official, and the Samaritan, was a neighbour to the man who was robbed on the Jericho road?'

The lawyer could only answer, 'The one who helped him.'

'That's all you need to know,' said Jesus. 'Off you go, and do the same thing.'

Christ knew as he wrote it down that, for all its unfairness, people would remember that story much longer than they'd remember a legal definition.

One day Jesus and some of his followers were invited to eat with two sisters, one called Mary and the other called Martha. Christ's informant told him what happened that evening. Jesus had been speaking, and Mary was sitting among the people listening to him, while Martha was busy preparing the meal.

At one point Martha came in to rebuke Mary: 'You let the bread burn! Look! I ask you to be careful with it, and you just forget all about it! How can I do three or four things at once?'

Mary said, 'The bread is not as important as this. I'm listening to the master's words. He's only here for one night. We can eat bread any time.'

'Master, what do you think?' said Martha. 'Shouldn't she help me, if I've asked her to? There are a lot of us here tonight. I can't do it all on my own.'

Jesus said, 'Mary, you can hear my words again, because there are others here to remember them. But once you've burnt the bread, no one can eat it. Go and help your sister.'

When Christ heard about this, he knew it would be another of those sayings of Jesus that would be better as truth than as history.

On the few occasions when Christ came close to Jesus, he did his best to avoid contact with him, but from time to time someone would ask him who he was, what he was doing, whether he was one of Jesus's followers, and so on. He managed to deal with questions of this kind quite easily by adopting a manner of mild courtesy and friendliness, and by making himself inconspicuous. In truth, he attracted little attention and kept to himself, but like any other man he sometimes longed for company.

Once, in a town Jesus had not visited before and where his followers were little known, Christ got into conversation with a woman. She was one of the prostitutes Jesus made welcome, but she had not gone in to dinner with the rest of them. When she saw Christ on his own, she said, 'Would you like to come to my house?'

Knowing what sort of woman she was, and realising that no one would see them, he agreed. He followed her to her house, and went in after her, and waited while she looked in the inner room to see that her children were asleep.

When she lit the lamp and looked at him she was startled, and said, 'Master, forgive me! The street was dark, and I couldn't see your face.'

'I'm not Jesus,' said Christ. 'I'm his brother.'

'You look so like him. Have you come to me for business?'

He could say nothing, but she understood, and invited him to lie on the bed with her. The business was concluded rapidly, and afterwards Christ felt moved to explain why he had accepted her invitation.

'My brother maintains that sinners will be forgiven more readily than those who are righteous,' he said. 'I have not sinned very much; perhaps I have not sinned enough to earn the forgiveness of God.'

'You came to me not because I tempted you, then, but out of piety? I wouldn't earn much if that was the case with every man.'

'Of course I was tempted. Otherwise I would not have been able to lie with you.'

'Will you tell your brother about this?'

'I don't talk much to my brother. He has never listened to me.'

'You sound bitter.'

'I don't feel bitter. I love my brother. He has a great task, and I wish I could serve him better than I do. If I sound downcast, it's perhaps because I'm conscious of the depth of my failure to be like him.'

'Do you want to be like him?'

'More than anything. He does things out of passion, and I do them out of calculation. I can see further than he can; I can see the consequences of things he doesn't think twice about. But he acts with the whole of himself at every moment, and I'm always holding something back out of caution, or prudence, or because I want to watch and record rather than participate.'

'If you let go of your caution, you might be carried away by passion as he is.'

'No,' said Christ. 'There are some who live by every rule and cling tightly to their rectitude because they fear being swept away by a tempest of passion, and there are others who cling to the rules because they fear that there is no passion there at all, and that if they let go they would simply remain where they are, foolish and unmoved; and they could bear that least of all. Living a life of iron control lets them pretend to themselves that only by the mightiest effort of will can they hold great passions at bay. I am one of those. I know it, and I can do nothing about it.'

'It's something to know it, at least.'

'If my brother wanted to talk about it, he would make it into a story that was unforgettable. All I can do is describe it.'

'And describing it is something, at least.'

'Yes, it is something, but not much.'

'Do you envy your brother, then?'

'I admire him, I love him, I long for his approval. But he cares little for his family; he's often said so. If I vanished he wouldn't notice, if I died he wouldn't care. I think of him all the time, and he thinks of me not at all. I love him, and my love torments me. There are times when I feel like a ghost beside him; as if he alone is real, and I'm just a daydream. But envy him? Do I begrudge him the love and the admiration that so many give him so freely? No. I truly believe that he deserves it all, and more. I want to serve him . . . No, I believe that I am serving him, in ways he will never know about.'

'Was it like that when you were young?'

'He would get into trouble, and I would get him out of it, or plead for him, or distract the grown-ups' attention by a clever trick or a winning remark. He was never grateful; he took it for granted that I would rescue him. And I didn't mind. I was happy to serve him. I am happy to serve him.'

'If you were more like him, you could not serve him so well.'

'I could serve others better.'

Then the woman said, 'Sir, am I a sinner?'

'Yes. But my brother would say your sins are forgiven.'

'Do you say that?'

'I believe it to be true.'

'Then, sir, would you do something for me?'

And the woman opened her robe and showed him her breast. It was ravaged with an ulcerating cancer.

'If you believe my sins are forgiven,' she said, 'please heal me.'

Christ turned his head away, and then looked back at her and said, 'Your sins are forgiven.'

'Must I believe that too?'

'Yes. I must believe it, and you must believe it.'

'Tell me again.'

'Your sins are forgiven. Truly.'

'How will I know?'

'You must have faith.'

'If I have faith, will I be healed?'

'Yes.'

'I will have faith, if you do, sir.'

'I do.'

'Tell me once more.'

'I have said it . . . Very well: your sins are forgiven.'

'And yet I'm not healed,' she said.

She closed her robe.

Christ said, 'And I am not my brother. Didn't I tell you that? Why did you ask me to heal you, if you knew I was not Jesus? Did I ever claim to be able to heal you? I said to you “Your sins are forgiven.” If you don't have sufficient faith after you've heard that, the fault is yours.'

The woman turned away and faced the wall, and drew her robe over her head.

Christ left her house. He was ashamed, and he went out of the town and climbed to a quiet place among the rocks, and prayed that his own sins might be forgiven. He wept a little. He was afraid the angel might come to him, and he hid all night.

Now the time of the Passover was getting close, and this prompted the people who listened to Jesus to ask about the Kingdom again: when will it come? How will we know it? What should we do to be ready for it?

'It'll be like this,' he told them. 'There was a wedding, and ten girls took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom and welcome him to the banquet. Now five of them took their lamps and nothing else, no spare oil, but the other five were a bit cleverer than that, and they brought some flasks of oil with them.

'Well, the bridegroom was delayed, and time went past, and all of the girls began to feel drowsy and closed their eyes.

'Then at midnight there was a cry: “He's coming! The bridegroom is here!”

'The girls woke up at once and started trimming their lamps. You can see what happened next: the foolish ones discovered that their oil had run out.

'“Give us some of your oil!” they said to the others. “Look, our lamps are going out!”

'And two of the far-seeing ones shared their oil with two of the foolish ones, and all four were admitted to the banquet. Two of the clever ones refused, and the bridegroom shut them out, together with two more foolish ones.

'But the last wise girl said, “Lord, we have come to celebrate your wedding, even the least of us. If you won't let us all in, I would rather stay outside with my sisters, even when the last of my oil is gone.”

'And for her sake the bridegroom opened the doors of the banquet and admitted them all. Now, where was the Kingdom of heaven? Inside the bridegroom's house? Is that what you think? No, it was outside in the dark with the wise girl and her sisters, even when the last of her oil was gone.'

Christ wrote down every word, but he resolved to improve the story later.

Next time the angel came, Christ was in Jericho. He was following Jesus and his disciples as they made their way to Jerusalem for the Passover. Jesus was staying in the house of one of his followers, but Christ had taken a room in a tavern not far away. At midnight he went outside to use the privy. When he turned to go back inside he felt a hand on his shoulder, and knew at once that it was the stranger.

'Events are moving quickly now,' the stranger said. 'We must talk about something important. Take me to your room.'

Once inside, Christ lit the lamp and gathered up the scrolls he had filled.

'Sir, what do you do with these scrolls?' he said.

'I take them to a place of great safety.'

'Will I be able to see them again? I may need to edit and correct the entries, in the light of what I have since learned about truth and history.'

'There will be an opportunity for that, never fear. Now tell me about your brother. What is his mood as he gets closer to Jerusalem?'

'He seems serene and confident, sir. I wouldn't say that has changed at all.'

'Does he speak of what he expects to happen there?'

'Only that the Kingdom will come very soon. Perhaps it will come when he is in the temple.'

'And the disciples? How is your informant? Is he still close to Jesus?'

'I would say he is in the very best position. He is not the closest or the most favoured - Peter and James and John are the men Jesus speaks to most confidentially - but my informant is securely among the middle-ranking followers. His reports are full and trustworthy. I have checked them.'

'We must think about rewarding him at some stage. But now I want to talk to you about something difficult.'

'I am ready, sir.'

'You and I know that for the Kingdom to flourish, it needs a body of men, and women too, both Jews and Gentiles, faithful followers under the guidance of men of authority and wisdom. And this church - we can call it a church - will need men of formidable organisational powers and deep intellectual penetration, both to conceive and develop the structure of the body and to formulate the doctrines that will hold it together. There are such men, and they are ready and waiting. The church will not lack organisation and doctrine.

'But you will remember, my dear Christ, the story of Abraham and Isaac. God sets his people severe tests. How many men of today would be ready to act like Abraham, prepared to sacrifice his son because the Lord had told him to? How many would be like Isaac, ready to do as his father told him and hold out his hands to be bound, and lie down on the altar, and wait peaceably for the knife in the serene confidence of righteousness?'

'I would,' said Christ at once. 'If that is what God wants, I would do that. If it would serve the Kingdom, yes, I would. If it would serve my brother, yes, yes, I would.'

He spoke eagerly, because he knew that this would give him the chance to atone for his failure to heal the woman with the cancer. It was his faith that had been insufficient, not hers; he had spoken harshly to her, and he still felt ashamed.

'You are devoted to your brother,' said the stranger.

'Yes. Everything I do is for him, though he doesn't know it. I have been shaping the history especially to magnify his name.'

'Don't forget what I told you when we first spoke: your name will shine as greatly as his.'

'I don't think of that.'

'No, but it may give you comfort to think that others do, and are working to make sure it comes about.'

'Others? There are others besides you, sir?'

'A legion. And it will come to happen, have no fear about that. But before I go, let me ask you again: do you understand how it might be necessary for one man to die so that many can live?'

'No, I don't understand it, but I accept it. If it is God's will, I accept it, even if it's impossible to understand. The story doesn't say whether Abraham and Isaac understood what they had to do, but they didn't hesitate to do it.'

'Remember your words,' said the angel. 'We shall talk again in Jerusalem.'

He kissed Christ on the brow before leaving with the scrolls.